Name: Zoltan Smazsochek
Title: A Quiet Place
Material Requirements:
- A canvas (4m x 15m)
- A ton of paint
- Some weird mind shit that kills people
Abstract: I know my last piece wasn't very good. That's fine I can do better. I listened to your criticisms and really took them to heart, and I think this one is a huge improvement okay here goes:
A Quiet Place is a project that is designed to get people to think about their lives and their friends lives and their partners lives and is supposed to make people question the meaning of life and death because how can we really know what life is or does unless we see someone lose it?
Intent: oh shit that was probably supposed to go under intent. Well for my intent see above. Well tell me if it's any better this time.
Response: A Quiet Place
John,
This shares a lot of issues with your last three proposals. It doesn't seem as though you have a firm grasp on what your project is trying to do. It seems like something you slapped together at the last minute to avoid having to make an actual contribution. I really expected more from you. Setting aside the safety concerns raised by your execution and the blatant disregard for legal protection (even Ruiz Duchamp had people sign waivers), I see a number of issues right off the bat:
- Forcing people to "think about their lives" by killing their friends or loved ones isn't going to do much but produce a bunch of pissed off widows.
- There are no plans in place to avoid vandalism. Cover up a single part of the memetic agent with graffiti, and the whole piece falls apart. No one dies, and no one is affected.
- I'm not sure you realize how much paint you've requested. That's two hundred sixty-four gallons of paint. That's twenty-six cowboy hats. I realize you're probably being hyperbolic, but you should probably be more precise with your measurements.
I think this could be cool yet, but it needs more work to reach its full potential. It seems as though you've got a good start, but you need to think your idea through further.
Regards,
The Critic
Name: Zoltan Smazsochek, please (John Sanders is dead and Zoltan killed him)
Title: The Big Blank
Material Requirements:
- A canvas which is exactly 4m x 15m x 1m
- Exactly 1.273 gallons of black (#000000) paint
- One (1) meme that shuts people up
Abstract: It is an unremarkable, otherwise perfectly ordinary painting on a canvas. It shall be placed by the roadside of Route 66 in America. It shall be viewed by everyone who passes the sign, and they will start to gradually lose the ability to communicate, be it electronically, by sight or verbally. I'm not sure if it works on everyone but it seems to target spoken words and written text and even stuff like interpretive dancing.
Intent: Rather than drawing this particular piece, I decided to steal it from a ruined German town, which was found by my friends. I haven't talked to them in a while so I hope they're okay. I work so hard on my art and it just hurts when people tell me "that sucks" and "you should do better" and "ur art is bad and you should feel bad" so I drew the meme on it in black paint. I wanted make to something that look for and shut down the ability to criticize. I hope I did it. Well anyway tell me what did I better.
Response: The Big Blank
Zoltan,
Apologies for misidentifying your name. I am merely going by the contact info I have listed on file, and I want to be sure to attribute you properly when patrons ask about your work. As per your request, I will amend the contact info.
As for your proposal, I'm sure you've heard the line "Good artists borrow, great artists steal", and it is indeed true. However, what I see here is less a manifestation of that and more a problem with "tracing". There is no attempt at modifying the concept, no recontextualizing of the initial idea, just a straight up copy. This is worrying at best, and frankly disgusting at worst. Get your shit together or get out.
Regards,
The Critic
Name: Zoltan or John or whatever
Title: I Don't Even Know Anymore
Material Requirements:
- A canvas (4m x 15m)
- White paint, I guess, for the white canvas
- Something, anything, to make good art
Abstract: I'm trying. I'm trying really hard, okay? This is the best I can do. I know everyone else can do better but we can't all be Picasso. I can barely even be Zoltan even though I want to be. Zoltan Smazsochek is a handsome smart talented artist who everybody loves. I'm just a loser.
Intent: I feels like I'm making no progress. I feel like I'm coloring with a white crayon on white paper. So that's what I did. Well that's what I did but with paint instead of crayons. I'm trying to cover things up but doing a really bad job of it, so I made an art where I drew the meme on top but you couldn't tell.
Response: I Don't Even Know Anymore
Dear Zoltan,
Are you familiar with Four thirty-three? I Don't Even Know Anymore reminds me a bit of that piece. The Composer shared it with me a few years back and it absolutely blew my mind. While your work is not necessarily mind-blowing, it doesn't need to be. It's honest, it's raw, and it's you.
In short? It was pretty cool.